The Universe Tries To Tell Me Things All the Time; Why Start Listening Now?

Thank you all for your condonement of my inappropriate dating. I appreciate your support.

The Universe, however, has not been so supportive. I awoke this morning with a seriously MASSIVE cold sore, or The Herp, as Jonniker calls it. I get them about once a year, and leave it to a sunburn and the stress of my weekend work “retreat” to render me ill-suited for my date on Thursday with suitor #2, the 25-year-old.

I am debating whether to cancel and reschedule for next week. But for now I am hiding out in my office with the door closed, not making eye contact with anyone in Trader Joe’s and slathering on this crazy French cold-sore-decimating crap I got during my trip to Paris and hoping for the best. And don’t worry, I don’t plan on exercising my lips in any way on the date, that’s not fair, I’d just prefer not to look like I have bubonic plague/leprosy on the first occasion I’ll be seeing this dude in a well-lit room.

Part of me does think this is a sign, that I’m being an idiot. But you know? When you work a lot, any bit of fun, no matter how disastrously fated, is something to look forward to, and I’m NOT giving it up.

So SUCK IT, Universe (j/k, please don’t ruin my life, sincerely, very truly yours, best regards, LYLAS, have a bitchin’ summer, xoxo, Jen).

I Guess I’ll Just Check the Box for 25-45 and Not Worry About It

Well, today was awesome.

I got up early today to drop off my car at the Hollywood Pep Boys before work so that I can drive to my weekend work retreat (yay! a weekend with the same people I see 10 hours a day, FABULOUS!) without my car overheating.

And while for the first five minutes on the train to work, I was thinking, hey, I should just brave the extra 30 minutes a day to take the bus (public transport is awesome, Steely Dan and I are ONE, I’ll be saving the world, yay!), then the train sat in the station for 15 minutes and I watched two people PICK THEIR NOSES and then grip the Metro poles and I was like, well…

And then! tonight on the way back I made the mistake of taking my earbuds out to respond to some dude who then proceeded to TOUCH MY LEG in the context of telling me how I looked like I played high school sports (?), and I was like, NEVER AGAIN.

But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take life lessons from the dude who molested me on the subway. No, this very-same totally stoned-out-of-his-mind, DJ-cum-budding entrepreneur made me think. He (2 minutes after meeting him) mentioned the high likelihood that we would eventually be married (I think because I was wearing, as Laurie calls it, my Cardigan of Constant Sorrow, which in the minds of men apparently ups the odds you’ll take them home and bed them at even the hint of matrimonial intentions). And I was like, “I’m not really looking for that right now, thanks.”

Which, you know, is a total lie.

And yet, you would not suspect it was a falsehood given what I’m up to in the dating sphere these days. For some reason (well, he makes me laugh), I’m seeing this 40-some-odd-year-old artist who’s relocating to a desert yurt in a few months, and the other prospect is a 25-year-old friend of a friend, who, while cute as an incredibly handsome button in my eyes, doesn’t believe that wine really CAN have a hint of apricot, and who after (so I hear) finally working up the courage to ask for my number, proceeded to tell me, “But work is crazy right now, so don’t be surprised if I don’t call you for a couple weeks.”

Uh-huh.

I guess my face must have betrayed my incredulity because this was followed closely by, “You make a lot of funny expressions.”

And really, what I wanted to say was, “How do you expect me to respond to that?” or DUDE, the COMPLETE LAPSE in judgment I’m currently suffering in giving you my number will have resolved itself in two weeks and I will likely be COMPLETELY HORRIFIED at my own idiocy and pretend we never met.

Instead, I said, “I suppose I do.”

This neutral statement must have conveyed the intended message, however, because (miracle!) I got a call a couple days later.

So now, here I am, dating two totally inappropriate people, no idea what I’m doing, not sure why I’m doing this, and if you have any ideas, I’m all ears.

For right now, the only judgment I’m going to exercise is the decision not to take public transport again. Makes me think too much.

Signs Costa Rica Is Going to ROCK

My summer vacation to Costa Rica is setting up great — primarily because I am not having to plan it. Instead, I’m in the able hands of Amber and her friend Curt, who I have actually never met. Traveling with someone I don’t know normally would make me nervous, but not with email exchanges like this (p.s. it’s funnier if you know that Curt is gay):

Amber: Woohoo! We’re all booked! Note that rates include a candlelit dinner.

Jen: I am sooo looking forward to romantic candlelit dinners with you two. You better bring your best game.

Curt: I’m already studying up…

Jen: I just snorted in my office laughing so hard. I hope no one heard me.

Curt: That response is in chapter 17. It’s working!

I am so excited!

Anyhoo

I was telling a coworker tonight about helping my dad make an attendance sheet for his welding class, laughing about how a man so intelligent could have so much trouble with Excel, the same way my dad would laugh about how his college-educated daughter can’t figure out how to turn her parking lights off, and I think the sudden invasion of thoughts of something so warm, so familiar into a job I’m still getting used to and thus is so NOT warm and familiar, just completely threw me, and I’ve been thinking about my Dad a lot this evening.

My dad is incredibly supportive. He indulges my hypochondria, he listens to my troubles as best he can, and as a man of few but choice words, he has a number of old standards, phrases that he always comes back to that really convey who he is and what his values are, and that I really should take under further advisement:

“I Am What I Am”

My father loves to quote Popeye and/or God.

If you comment on his person in any way, positive, negative, just observational nonsense, this is his response, and I really think this is just what he believes. That he is. What he is. And he is fine that way.

HOW AWESOME WOULD IT BE TO FEEL THAT WAY? What if I was? What I am? And I was fine with that?

“Well, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars”

This is Dad’s standard tag-on to when he describes what he’s been up to lately. As a retired dude, he keeps surprisingly busy, teaching welding, yard work, welding the neighbors a new fence or his old partner a frou-frou chimney topper. And whenever he concludes an account of a new endeavor, he reminds me, “well, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars.”

And while I don’t think Dad has ever hit either the streets or the bars, I know what he means.

It keeps his mind and body occupied, keeps him interested in the world, doing for others, eliminates the need for meaningless distractions.

That is something I need to do more of.

“Yes, Dear”

I don’t know what advice my father gave my brother when he got married, but I assume it was similar to the advice he gave Allan back in the day we were poor candidates for marital bliss, which consisted mainly of advocating the use of the phrase, “yes, dear.”

And while my dad enjoys playing the long-suffering husband, considering his garage is 3/4 of the size of the house, I know he’s really talking about just giving as much as you can, when you can.

Something I need to do. Or rather, something I need to learn to do without begrudging the result.

“Anyhoo”

This is one of my favorite Southern-isms, the “anyhoo.” (Number one favorite? “Quit your caterwauling.”) While it might seem like a placeholder, an “anyway” a “so,” a “well,” really, it’s really a gentlemanly way to say: “I talked too long about myself, what would you like to say?”

Anyway, so, well, anyhoo, I talked too long about myself, what would you like to say?